AT&T Announces Plans to Bring Gigabit Internet Service to Austin, TX

In some type of twisted dark humor, AT&T announced today their plans to bring a 1Gbps Internet service to the city of Austin, TX. If you have been following the news of Google Fiber, they too made their expansion into the city of 820K residents official yesterday morning. So, for anyone not living in Austin, TX this must just seem like the worst thing ever.

While Google has already stated that homes can begin getting set up for Fiber in mid-2014, AT&T has yet to give any type of time frame. What the company is highlighting currently is that they too will receive the same terms and conditions as Google has in regards of “geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives.”

If you ask me, this just isn’t fair.

AUSTIN, Texas, April 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) said today that it is pleased to see local communities and municipalities acknowledging the promise and power of economic development associated with telecommunications investment.

“Most encouraging is the recognition by government officials that policies which eliminate unnecessary regulation, lower costs and speed infrastructure deployment, can be a meaningful catalyst to additional investment in advanced networks which drives employment and economic growth,” said Randall Stephenson , AT&T chairman and CEO.

Today, AT&T announced that in conjunction with its previously announced Project VIP expansion of broadband access, it is prepared to build an advanced fiber optic infrastructure in Austin, Texas, capable of delivering speeds up to 1 gigabit per second. AT&T’s expanded fiber plans in Austin anticipate it will be granted the same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives. This expanded investment is not expected to materially alter AT&T’s anticipated 2013 capital expenditures.

AT&T consistently invests in U.S. communities — $98 billion in capital in the past five years, more than any other public company — and remains committed to working with any metropolitan community to reach agreement on incentives to improve the climate and speed of overall telecommunications infrastructure investment – facilitating both wired and wireless broadband access. Our potential capital investment will depend on the extent we can reach satisfactory agreements.